Drunken Shrimp

FRESH ceviche! Like really fresh. Seeing drunken shrimp on a menu might raise your hopes of some kind of delicious bourbon BBQ prawn dish… it’s not quite what you think… Drunken shrimp is a Chinese dish, consisting of a big bowl of shrimp or prawns, soaking in a rice based liquor called Baijiu.

My whiter than white parents have lived in China now for over 8 years. One of their favoritest things in the world is to bringing home bottles of Baijiu (By-jee-oh) and make us drink it. It’s about 40-60% alcohol, and tastes like jet fuel. I was even given a bottle of Yak’s milk wine… but that’s another foododdity…

The shrimp are not cooked, though hopefully they get some kind of cleaning before they are thrown into the dish still alive. The alcohol stuns the little buggers, making them sluggish and easier to handle.

The flavor is kind of like cooked shrimp and even more similar to raw. Other version include cooking the shrimp before or after. I’ve made them, but was too chicken to eat them without blasting them with enough heat to turn them red and make them less scary :)